ESA Science & Technology - Cosmic Vision

The first images from Solar Orbiter, a new Sun-observing mission by ESA and NASA, have revealed omnipresent miniature solar flares, dubbed 'campfires', near the surface of our closest star.

ESA's Euclid mission has reached another milestone on its journey towards launch. Its two instruments are now built and fully tested. These have been delivered to Airbus Defence and Space in Toulouse, France, where they are now being integrated with the telescope to form the mission's payload module.

CHEOPS, ESA's new exoplanet mission, has successfully completed its almost three months of in-orbit commissioning, exceeding expectations for its performance.

ESA's exoplanet-observer CHEOPS acquired the first image of its initial target star, following the successful telescope cover opening on 29 January 2020.

Following an internal assessment of the results of the phase 0 studies, the European Space Agency is moving forward starting the Definition Phase (phase A) for the F-class mission Comet Interceptor.

Despite certain operational difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the assembly and integration of the flight model for ESA's JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft has continued with few delays during the first six months of the year.

This is the first entry in the Euclid Test Campaign Journal, a series of articles covering the main events during testing of the Structural and Thermal Model (STM) and Flight Model (FM) of the spacecraft.